Robert B. Parker’s Showdown
Robert B. Parker’s acclaimed series featuring mononymous Boston PI Spenser now numbers 52 entries, the last few having been penned by Mike Lupica after Parker’s death in 2010. The newest, Showdown, finds the wisecracking detective exchanging barbs with friend and foe alike as he investigates a paternity claim directed at well-loathed racist podcaster Vic Hale. Hale is days away from inking the biggest deal of his career, indeed the biggest deal in the history of podcasting. However, the accusation that he fathered a child with an immigrant woman could torch his thus far impeccable credentials as a bigot and sink that big deal. The woman in question has recently died, the victim of a “random” attack that appears less and less random the deeper Spenser delves into the case. Spenser’s client is Daniel Lopez, purported son of the podcaster. There is DNA evidence linking Hale and Lopez, but the nurse who administered the test is discovered to have died in rather suspect circumstances, shortly after paying a visit to Lopez’s mother. A final closed-room confrontation with some of the primary villains of the piece sets the stage for a revealing denouement. An aside: Mike Lupica’s iteration of Spenser has come to embrace modern technology, relying less and less on his fists to solve his cases, but there is still ample violence for fans who relish that sort of thing. And Lupica can deliver a twist ending with the best of ’em.
At Midnight Comes the Cry
At Midnight Comes the Cry, Julia Fleming-Spencer’s latest entry in her popular Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne series, finds Episcopal pastor Fergusson engaged in the coordination of a small-town holiday parade. Her husband, somewhat-involuntarily-retired police chief Russ Van Alstyne, is a bit at loose ends, having been a public servant for all of his working life. Then things begin to go sideways in a big way: Clare’s parade becomes the unexpected host of a float sponsored by a racist militia group, and fisticuffs ensue amid the festivities. Meanwhile, Russ finds himself dragged into a search for a police officer who has disappeared from view while infiltrating the same homegrown militia responsible for the parade disruption. At every step, members of this militia seem to turn up in the lives of Fergusson and Van Alstyne, both on a personal level and as subjects of the sleuths’ deep dive into their paramilitary activities. Two other parallel investigations into the militia come into play, one by a lawyer from the attorney general’s office and one by a New York forest ranger looking into the disappearance of a park service officer. Both of these investigations are very much under the radar, as are Fergusson and Van Alstyne’s, but there is ample evidence suggesting that a major plot is afoot to burnish the credentials of the militia and foster chaos and death in its wake. As always, Spencer-Fleming’s story is first-rate, and on a personal note, I look forward to seeing more of two new characters in future installments.
★ The Living and the Dead
Christoffer Carlsson’s Levande och döda received the 2023 Swedish Crime Writers’ Academy award for Best Swedish Crime Novel. Now with an English translation by Rachel Willson-Broyles, The Living and the Dead is poised to impress a whole new audience, and impress it will. Skavböke is a small town where everyone knows everyone and secrets are rarely kept for long. And yet, the secrets surrounding the deaths of teenagers Mikael Söderström and Killian Persson have persisted for 25 years and have drastically altered the lives of those who knew the two boys. The police officers investigating the deaths have long since retired, but when the brother of one of the original victims is killed, the new murder investigation calls into question some of the conclusions (or lack thereof) in the first case. The current lead investigator, Vidar Jörgenssen, must interview one of his predecessors, a woman who gave up police work and became a cabinetmaker and antique restoration expert following the disappointing results of the turn-of-the-century case. She too holds some secrets from 25 years ago, secrets that will perhaps weigh heavily in the modern-day investigation. I have long maintained that Nordic noir is the creme de la creme of contemporary crime fiction; Christoffer Carlson is the creme de la creme of Nordic noir.
Silent Bones
Investigative journalist Sam Nimmo was the number one suspect in the murder of his pregnant girlfriend. The fact that he disappeared from view for more than a decade after the murder pretty much cemented his status as an on-the-lam killer. And then remains found in the aftermath of a flood were confirmed to be those of Nimmo, thus upending every previously advanced narrative. Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie, of the Police Scotland Historic Cases Unit, will be called in to lead the investigation, in Val McDermid’s latest thriller, Silent Bones. The Nimmo case will not be the only item on Pirie’s plate, however; an angry man mourning the loss of his brother has halfway convinced Pirie and her team that his brother’s death was not the accident it was initially thought to be. The victim was a member of the Justified Sinners, ostensibly a book club, but in reality something altogether darker. Moreover, there is the distinct possibility that the two cases share a link. Pirie herself is a nuanced character, still recovering from the death of the love of her life, but moving forward in ways she could not have imagined earlier. Her two staff members, Jason Murray (the tech wiz) and Daisy Mortimer (the clever but at times deliberately annoying one) round out the cast, and both grow into their respective roles quite handily, demanding—and receiving—larger roles in the narrative. I don’t want to give away the grand finale, but it was about the most true-to-life ending I could imagine.